The solution I've come up with for the Videomic Pro

[Jeff Harper]

Okay, it might be me, who knows. But I have found the Videomic Pro suspension to be absolutely horrible for my use. The bands come off easily and it is such a tedious process to get them back in correctly, only to find that after all I didn't get them back in correctly during a shoot and they pop out again. I have never been so upset at piece of gear.

The stupid battery compartment is equally bad, and I'm no genius, for sure, but I have trouble replacing the battery compartment lid every time. But I digress.

The worst thing about this mic is that the mic came off of the shoe mount and fell during a vertical pan in the middle of a wedding reception, what a joke. I mean the mic popped off the suspension.

So I hopefully solved two issues at once. I first discarded the cheesy suspension, I chucked it. Got rid of it completely. I epoxied the hot shoe mount to the bottom of the battery compartment, and now it is just like my trusty Sennheiser mini shotgun mic. I had to grind the nubs off of the shoe mount, but it should work fine now.

How much did that mic cost? I don't remember, but it was around $300 or more when I bought it. Way too expensive for the middling crap I put up with for six months.

[D.J. Ammons]

You are correct that the Videomic Pro's suspension is terrible but the title of your thread infers the microphone itself is horrible and it is certainly not!

It is funny though that I hate the suspension on the Pro so much I find myself still using my original Videomic. Of course that is not a bad thing as it is an amazing little microphone.

The engineer that devised the Pro's suspension should be made to sit in a corner with a dunce cap on!

[Andy Wilkinson]

As I've mentioned before, I simply just superglue the suspension bands on at the attachment points. Only needs a TINY amount at each corner, in each recess, and it'll still be be easy to peel of the bands when they eventually perish/need replacement.

Another alternative is to put the body of the Rode VMP into a Rycote Invision mount - there are some pictures of this somewhere on here/the web. I've tried this and it certainly works well but makes the whole assemble much more bulky (i.e. not ideal when using with a small camcorder).

Jeff, I'd also suggest you re-name the thread title to make it more specific/useful. It's a VERY good, small mic - it just has an annoying suspension design!

[Jeff Harper]

Thread renamed more appropriately, thank you guys.

I use the original videomic without it's suspension system also, I mounted the mic to the shotgun mic mount holder on my camera, works so much better. I hated the bouncing when I moved the camera. I'm very happy to have bypassed suspension system on both.

[Chad Johnson]

Here you go: Rycote InVision Video, with the Røde VideoMic Pro fitted | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Problem solved.

[Jeff Harper]

Nice Chad, but too delicate for my run and gun style. Very nice, very pro, and it looks very quiet.

[John Willett]

Originally Posted by Jeff Harper

Nice Chad, but too delicate for my run and gun style. Very nice, very pro, and it looks very quiet.

What makes you think that is delicate?

The Rycote "Lyre" suspensions are extremely tough - that setup is not delicate at all.

[Chad Johnson]

Exactly. The InVision mount is a hearty solution to a delicate Rode suspension for the VMP. It's used for professional mics, and is plenty hearty - more-so than any other mount IMO. And if one's job at hand requires a "hearty" mic, maybe an actual professional mic is what one needs. The VMP, while having "Pro" in the name, is a consumer mic designed to sit on top of a camcorder or DSLR, not to really work with outside of that capacity - though you can get good results with some fiddling.

[Jeff Harper]

Delicate or hearty, it's too much to mount to my GH2, I need compact. Don't need or want a suspension, though there are situations if I'm on a bouncing floor it would be preferable. The cam my VMP sits upon is a noiseless camera so no worries there. I want no moving parts that can be broken or mangled. As I said it is a very nice looking device, would love to have one for a pro camera setup.

[Chad Johnson]

Maybe you should get a Sennheiser MKH400? It's smaller, and the shock mount is not likely to come apart at all. The reality is anything you use is going to have moving parts of some sort. It's a trade-off. The better you want something to sound/look, the harder it is to achieve. You simply have to compromise on what you want and deal with what is, and make it work. You have the best solutions laid out for you. The only thing left is to implement them.

[Jeff Harper]

Hi Chad, I own and use the Sennheiser, it goes on a different camera. Thanks for the suggestion though. As I mentioned, I have mounted the shoe mount of the Rode to the bottom of the battery compartment with epoxy, and it looks very similar now to the Sennheiser.

Gluing the rubber bands was a great idea, but for some reason I never thought of it. I'm happy enough with it as is, worked great last night.

[John Willett]

For a small mic., my first choice would be the Ambient TinyMike I think.

[Chad Johnson]

That Tiny Mic, IMO, was the closest contender to the Rode VMP for the top spot in Sam Mallery's on-camera mic shootout. If any of the mics beat the VMP it was the Tiny. Here's the shootout:
The Great On-Camera Mic Shootout 2010 - YouTube

[John Willett]

Originally Posted by Chad Johnson

That Tiny Mic, IMO, was the closest contender to the Rode VMP for the top spot in Sam Mallery's on-camera mic shootout. If any of the mics beat the VMP it was the Tiny. Here's the shootout:
The Great On-Camera Mic Shootout 2010 - YouTube

But the TinyMike wasn't in the shootout you linked to.

And, actually, the shootout told you virtually nothing about the mics other than the relative sensitivity.

[Chad Johnson]

That Tiny Mic, IMO, was the closest contender to the Rode VMP for the top spot in Sam Mallery's recent on-camera mic shootout. If any of the mics beat the VMP it was the Tiny.
Here's the Shootout for 2011:

The Great On-Camera Mic Shootout 2011 - YouTube